By now, most people have seen and maybe even forgotten the haunting final video posted by model Sabira Hossain before she took her life - a tragic ten minute clip where she described how the man she had loved and who had promised to marry her had ended their relationship and instead thrown her out with the help of his family. The 21 year old’s suffering is all too apparent in the clip, and it is difficult to watch the young girl struggle with her decision to end it all and her very human inability to do so.
Although the video ends with her suicide attempt failing, Sabira Hossain was unfortunately successful in her second attempt. Last month, on 24 May 2016, she was found dead at her house in the capital’s Mirpur area. After her death, Sabira’s Facebook page has been filled with an outpouring of shock and grief, with friends expressing disbelief that she could do such a thing.
However, there has also been a much darker side of the reactions to this young girl’s suicide, and has given us cause to question not only the stigma that is associated with mental health and suicide, but also the stigma associated with breaking social norms, especially in the case of young women.
Victim shaming, no matter the case
The most common negative reaction has been denouncements of her act as weak or unnatural, with many commentators declaring they have “no sympathy” for someone foolish enough to take their own life. While the unrelenting stigma around suicide is not uncommon, the fact that Sabira was a young girl from the world of media only added to the vitriol aimed at her.
A daughter of estranged parents, Sabira entered the world of modelling at a young age, and began a relationship with photographer Nirjhar. At the time of her death, she was living on her own in Dhaka, and the shock of losing him too obviously had a disturbing psychological effect on her. But rather than focusing on the importance of understanding and dealing with mental health issues, especially in the youth population, we spiraled into the usual blame game. Why did she have to live on her own? Why didn’t she realise the man was using her? Add to that the stigma that comes with being a woman in the world of media and you have even more mud to sling. Do good girls lead such Western lifestyles openly? Doesn’t her career choice show what she was?
In a way, there is an almost eerie parallel to the victim shaming that happens in the cases of sexual assault and abuse, something we still casually call “eve-teasing” in our country when it is so much more than just a joke. ‘What was she wearing?’ and ‘who was she with?’ are the two most common questions asked about these cases, whether at homes, workplaces or even police stations. To people who are not hard-wired to instantly guess that the fault lay with the woman, no matter what, similar questions regarding Sabira’s personal life seem just as irrational. And even more worryingly, it has all the same undertones that is so common in our society - a sadistic sort of glee at the despair of a woman who made the choice to break out of socially accepted norms but failed to live with the consequences. For all the people who believe that Sabira should have known better than to live on her own, work as a model and live in a way that many would deem as ‘socially unacceptable’, her death is proof of the wrongness of her decisions and the rightness of their judgment.
A society that ignores mental health
What is most distressing is that underneath all the gossip and speculation about her personal life, there is hidden a story of a troubled young girl who, when faced with no friends and no way out, took to social media for one last cry of help before ending it all. What has been lost is the story of psychological trauma and depression that led to Sabira's untimely death, displaying a very real ignorance of mental health issues.
According to psychologist Dr. Mehtab Khanam, it is important for youngsters to have healthy emotional attachments from their early childhood, and a lack of a sense of security can leave psychological scars that run deep. “Children need to believe the world is trustworthy and develop a sense of security, and feel anchored to someone without being engulfed by them from an early age”, she says. “When these healthy attachments do not exist, you can definitely become too emotionally invested in one person later on in life, and this of course can be a psychological problem.”
She adds, “the problem now is that in the age of social media and heightened levels of communication, it is all too easy to move on to the next option rather than work on our relationships. These short-lived relationships and the insecurity that has existed from early childhood can lead to depression and even suicide, especially when the woman is faced with the shame and guilt that follows after a failed relationship.”
Sabira was a young girl with her entire life ahead of her. A person used to being in the spotlight, yet she was completely alone. But hers is not the only story of loneliness and depression that led to a life being snuffed out too early. According to WHO data, 10,167 suicides occurred in Bangladesh in 2014. A Dhaka Tribune report from that time confirms that most of these deaths were young females between 15 to 29 years. But it is high time we as a society stop blaming these victims of suicide and heaping shame and guilt onto their choices. Until we do so, we will continue to fail other young people like her, who feel as isolated, alone and psychologically disturbed as Sabira did.
